Use of Social Media

Social media is a way for people to share information. An account can generally represent an individual, a company, municipality, or a group. While the three primary uses for social media are networking, socializing, and marketing, social media is also used to provide the public with information about city events, schools, traffic, new businesses, weather-related incidents, and new initiatives.

Social Media Statistics
Social media is continuing to grow with Facebook still be the most popular site. In the United States, the following proportion was from August 2015 to 2014 with Facebook reaching 72 percent of adult internet users which is 62 percent of the adult population. However, it was the only platform that did not see significant growth .[1] Messaging apps are a new segment in this report and showing 29 percent of online adults using an app such as WhatsApp, Kik or iMessage.[2] Other popular Social Media sites in the United States are Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram and Pinterest each with a respective adult internet users proportion of 23 percent, 25 percent, 28 percent, and 31 percent.[3]

As of January 2014, 74 percent of online adults used social networking sites.[4] We are in an age where grandparents, while sitting in the comfort of their homes, are able to visit their grandchildren who live 500 miles away over FaceTime or Skype. Children today do not think twice about sending a video of themselves doing a hand stand to all their friends at school using SnapChat. Our workforce is adapting to the changes brought about by social media in their personal lives and we must help them adapt professionally in our workplaces and our communities.